Hello friends,
🙌 Many thanks for reading The Quest #126, your weekly round-up of tips and insights to help you design and lead exceptional online sessions that your group members will love. ❤️
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Let’s jump right in!
⚒️ Keeping up to speed with new digital tools was one of my biggest struggles as an online facilitator.
When I started I was not always up-to-date with the latest Zoom features. I had a hard time keeping up with Mentimeter updates. I couldn’t figure out how to use Miro templates.
I decided to stick with a few go-to tools that I felt comfortable with.
The same Zoom poll. An occasional Mentimeter word cloud. And if I was really feeling adventurous, I’d launch a question in Sli.do.
There was a cost to staying in my comfort zone.
I was not advancing in my facilitation in the ways that I wanted to. And I was not using tools that could give my participants ways to engage with my sessions.
It was a mindset problem.
I have never seen myself as especially tech-savvy. This mindset had become the perfect excuse to shy away from doing the work I needed to do to grow my online facilitation skills.
If I wanted to grow my confidence in using digital tools I needed to ditch that limiting belief.
And that was my big breakthrough. The more I experimented with new tools, the more comfortable I became. I was able to come up with new ideas for my virtual sessions. And it’s made me want to learn more.
Online tools can help you connect with your participants and boost engagement. It can help get all voices heard. And it’s more fun.
🤔 How can you expand your repertoire of new digital tools?
That’s our Quest for this week🔎
👉 10 Digital Tools Worth Trying
👉 How StreamAlive Plans to Revolutionize Online Engagement
Plus
👉 Join me and the StreamAlive team for a free webinar on July 19th (details below)
💡 10 Digital Tools to Try (with free versions)
As someone who runs live online sessions, you have more options than ever before when it comes to digital tools. The problem is that it can be easy to get overwhelmed with so many tools. And they keep evolving.
To make it easier for you, I’ve come up with a list of 10 digital tools with free versions that are worth trying👇
1/ MIRO Collaborative interactive whiteboard with excellent facilitation templates.
2/ MURALCollaborative interactive whiteboard – similar to Miro.
3/ GOOGLE JAMBOARD Collaborative interactive whiteboard – fewer features than Mural and Miro.
4/ MENTIMETER Interactive tools like polls, quizzes, word clouds, and Q&A.
5/ SLI.DO Interactive tools – similar to Mentimeter.
6/ PADLET Digital notice board for images, links, and videos.
7/ MMHMM Creative video tool for teaching and presentations.
8/ ZOOM ANNOTATE A tool in Zoom that allows you and participants to annotate on a shared screen.
9/ ZOOM POLLS A tool in Zoom for running polls that can be set up in advance.
10/ ZOOM REACTIONS A tool in Zoom for nonverbal reactions and feedback.
What are your favorite digital facilitation tools?
🖥️ How StreamAlive Plans To Revolutionize Online Engagement
No sooner than I had ditched my “I’m not tech-savvy” mindset, I got a message from friend and tech entrepreneur (author, comedian, and rapper) Lux Narayan asking me if I would like to be a beta tester for his new online engagement tool called StreamAlive. I immediately said yes😅.
StreamAlive is designed to pump up online engagement in live online sessions including courses, meetings, webinars, live streams, and more. And it’s by far the digital tool that I am most excited about.
StreamAlive allows you to run maps, polls, and word clouds.
Sure, you can do that with other tools like Mentimeter and Sli.do. The big leap forward with StreamAlive is that it takes the information directly from the chat.
✔️Your participants don’t have to click on any links or go to another website.
✔️And you don’t have to rely on being able to speed read the answers from the chat.
Here are two examples:
- Real-time maps to bring your audience’s locations to life as they enter them into the chat👇
- Word clouds that reflect your audience’s thoughts as they enter words into the chat like this👇
StreamAlive has added new features like using AI to track questions in the chat. It has integrated ChatGPT to help you come up with prompt questions and poll options. And it works with most of the major platforms.
I recently joined StreamAlive as an advisor because I truly believe that it is going to revolutionize the way we work and learn together online.
You can start using it for free 👉 here.
💌Thanks for reading The Quest
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Creatively yours,
Whenever you are ready there are 2 more ways I can help you:
👉Custom coaching & team training. Book a free 15-minute zero-commitment call with me to see how I can support you and your team.
👉5-week Live Online Course. The Breakthrough Facilitation course gives you tools, personalized feedback, and a proven framework for designing and leading high-engagement live sessions. Join the interest list and be the first to get the next cohort dates and discounts.
